I agree with everything said by the PP. There is no right or wrong when it comes to brooder. I've heard of people using large cardboard boxes, old kiddie pools etc. For myself, I had one of those old laundry washtubs (metal) that was huge, so I used that. Make sure you use something that is easy to clean out as with 16 chicks you will be doing quite a bit of cleaning. I did use pine shavings, but for the first day or so, you'll want to cover the pine shavings with paper towel (not newspaper as it can be slippery when wet). The purpose of the paper towel is that to begin with they won't know what is food and what isn't, so will try to eat the pine shavings. After the first day or two, once they are established eating the chick crumbles, you can remove the paper towels.
As for size, the chicks will grow really fast so the brooder needs to be big enough to accommodate 16 six-week-olds, not 16 day-old chicks. This is really important because what seems huge at first will quite quickly start to seem way too small. If they are too crowded they will not be happy and may start to peck each other.
I used one of those little chick feeders for the crumbles as it helps to keep them from spilling it. For water, I built a little platform (consisted of two tuna cans with a wire shelf across to begin with; as they got bigger, I used taller and taller cans). On the platform, I put a heavy ceramic bowl, with a rock in the middle. If the water is at about the height of their back, they will be able to reach in to get water but won't be able to get as many of the pine shavings into it. That is the reason for making it higher and higher as they grew.
On heat, conventional wisdom is 95 for the first week and reduce by 5 degrees per week. Honestly, I found this to be a little warm. You can tell if they are comfortable because if too cold, they'll huddle around the heat and if too warm, they'll separate and get as far from the heat as possible. At the recommended temps I noticed they spent more time trying to get away from the heat than near it, so I reduced the temp a little (you can do this either by using a lower wattage bulb or raising the light higher above the brooder) and they seemed much more comfortable. You know they are comfortable when they are moving freely around the brooder, spending a little time near the heat and a little time away from it.
Mine were fully feathered at around 4 weeks and moved outside full-time at that stage. However it wasn't winter and temps outside were considerably warmer than they are now! You would have to decide based on your weather and climate, as well as feathering, at what point they can go outside. I.e., in southern California I'd be more inclined to move them outside early, but in Minnesota, I'd keep them in a lot longer. In any case, you don't want to make a very sudden transition from warm brooder to cool outdoors. Before I moved mine outside, I started turning the heat off inside for longer periods so that they became used to cooler temps. Then, their first time outside was for only an hour, next day 3-4 hours, next day 6-7 and so on. Let them adjust gradually and they'll be fine.
Good luck!
